System-on-chip (SoC) integrated circuits are being utilized in smaller and/or increasingly complex consumer electronic devices, such as cell phones, media players, digital cameras, network equipment, television client devices, and the like. Typically, all or most of the electronic circuitry, one or more microprocessors, memory, input-output logic control, communication interfaces and components, and other hardware, firmware, and/or software needed to run an entire device can be integrated within an SoC. As the electronic devices are designed to be smaller and more complex, conserving device power continues to be a design initiative, particularly when the devices are smaller and have limited battery or power cell space.
An SoC designed for an electronic device can be implemented with a multi-core processor that includes two or more independent processing cores in a single integrated circuit. A multi-core processor can function to multiprocess computer instructions, such as operating system instructions and device specific application instructions, and may be implemented for simultaneous processing of multiple tasks. While multi-core processors increase processor performance in various consumer electronic devices, power consumption likewise increases.